Forest protection invites trouble for trees

DOES protecting forests simply displace deforestation elsewhere? One study published this week suggests not, while another warns that it attracts people seeking work, threatening forest and wildlife.

Both studies focus on "neighbourhood leakage" - the idea that banning logging in some areas pushes it elsewhere.

David Gaveau at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK, found that between 1990 and 2000, deforestation in Sumatra was lower both in protected areas and within 10 kilometres of these zones than in more distant unprotected forests, suggesting that neighbourhood leakage was not occurring (Journal of Biogeography, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2009.02147.x).

A second study of 306 protected areas in 45 countries by George Wittemyer of the University of California, Berkeley, found that rural settlements near protected zones grew at twice the rate of those elsewhere (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1158900).

To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.

To continue reading this article, log in or subscribe to New Scientist